Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Huo Shaoheng did not turn the television off, even after the news had finished. He walked to the French windows leading to the balcony, opened them, and walked out onto the balcony. He closed the windows and lit a cigarette. He took a deep, comforting puff.

This high-end condominium apartment he had rented wasn’t a high-rise building. It consisted of only about 20 levels. His apartment was on level 18. Looking down from his balcony on the 18th floor, the lights on the ground floor looked like they were sparkling. It was brightly lit from there to level six, but anything above that was so dark, you couldn’t even see your fingers in the darkness.

The light from the cigarette fluctuated between bright and dim, just like his emotions. However, he wasn’t panicking. After being in his occupation for a decade, he had been through near-death situations countless times. He was already used to every form of emergency and finding the right escape for himself each time.

This time around, he had been truly caught unaware. When he first got Tan Guiren’s case, he thought it was merely another simple overseas mission. Little did he expect that the opponent would take such a big step, and he even intended to sacrifice the only daughter of a prime minister candidate just to lure him into this trap.

Of course, if the opponent had not done all that, Huo Shaoheng would not have fallen into the trap. Even now, they could not announce their victory, because the Americans had not managed to capture Huo Shaoheng. He was merely “missing.” However, they thought that he was missing in a certain area that they had well surrounded. No one knew if he was alive or dead. Even the mastermind did not know. He must have been extremely anxious by now.

Suddenly, Huo Shaoheng had ceased his escape attempts. Many would be wondering what was going on. Who was this mastermind? What could he do to force Huo Shaoheng to show himself?

Huo Shaoheng narrowed his eyes and took another puff of his cigarette. He blew the smoke out into a smoke ring. As he watched the smoke ring disappear, an idea came to him. Since he couldn’t find out who the person was in the Hua Xia Empire, he could try it from America, couldn’t he? They must have needed to communicate with America…

Huo Shaoheng remembered the “rat” they had captured a few years ago. He was that person’s contact when he was overseas. He told the media openly that he knew where the nuclear bombs were placed along the Hua Xia Empire’s southeast coastal border. He also pointedly listed some exact locations. The moment this piece of information was out, the senior officers from the Army Supreme Committee almost went crazy.

This was top secret information in the army; how in the world did they know everything?!

Huo Shaoheng was then tasked with finding out who this rat was. It only took him half a day to narrow it down to a main suspect, because he found out after the investigation that there was an important factor in the locations of the bombs that the person had announced, and only one person in the entire Army knew about that. This meant that the opponent had betrayed the person who leaked the information from the Hua Xia Empire to them.

The person, who was arrested by Huo Shaoheng personally, was someone with a remarkable background. However, the military court did not spare him at all. They ordered an immediate death sentence. Now that this had happened, Huo Shaoheng felt that he could perhaps try the same method, agitating the American spies and seeing if he could get anything out of them.

After making the decision, he flicked his cigarette butt away and returned to his room to sleep. The next day, Huo Shaoheng woke up extremely early. He went to the gym in the condominium and trained hard for half an hour before heading down to the café for breakfast. After that, he drove the SUV he had rented to the train station in New City and took the train into New York. It would only take him 20 minutes.

Upon exiting, he entered the subway station in New York. In the restroom, Huo Shaoheng entered a cubicle and removed his blue contact lenses and changed the shape of his nose. In its place, he wore a pair of rimmed glasses. Then, he tucked the edges of his white shirt into his pants and put on a pair of nicely polished leather shoes. He also had a laptop bag with him.

He looked exactly like a normal Asian IT guy very commonly seen in New York. He used this look and entered the next subway that was heading towards the harbor. The moment the train arrived at the station, Huo Shaoheng walked to the harbor and pretended to get a ticket. As he was doing so, he realized that someone had noticed him.

This was because his looks matched the description of the Asian “criminal” that the American police had put out in the news. The prize for finding him had already been increased from 10,000 US dollars to 50,000 US dollars. Therefore, many people noticed him.

“The man in font, please hold on.” A small CIA agent saw Huo Shaoheng enter the harbor and noticed him immediately. The more he looked at Huo Shaoheng, the more he felt that he looked like the “criminal” they were shown at the briefing.

Huo Shaoheng paused as if he had not heard the person calling out to him. Then, he quickened his steps. Eventually, he was almost jogging.

“Stop! The man in front! Stop where you are! If not, we’ll shoot!” Upon seeing that the Asian man was not stopping for the agent and was running away instead, the CIA agent realized that this man must have been suspicious. He might even be the runaway criminal that they were so desperately trying to capture! He quickly called for backup from the police officers who were standing by at the harbor, prepared to shoot.

Huo Shaoheng managed to hide behind a metal board that was used for a display and looked around. He knew this harbor in America well. There were many illegal gatherings there, and there were many black markets selling illegal drugs as well. He scanned quickly through the crowd and saw that there were two African Americans dealing drugs in a corner nearby. He raised his gun and shot one of the guys. The person fell, and his partner was taken aback.

The man peeked out from the corner and saw that there were police officers with guns drawn running over to where he was. They were firing relentlessly as well. He thought that his cover was blown, so he took out his gun and shot back at them. “Police are here! Run!” he shouted as he fired. His partners in crime immediately ran in different directions and took out their guns to shoot the police officers.

The harbor that had been rather peaceful just a moment ago turned chaotic in an instant. America was a country that allowed its citizens to have guns for self-defense. Therefore, good people had guns, and the bandits had guns. The police had guns, and the criminals had guns, too. The moment the police officers wanted to catch someone, it’d usually end up in a shooting match. Huo Shaoheng knew this well, and therefore made use of this situation to escape.

The gangs in the New York harbor were massive. Therefore, the police tried not to care too much about what went on there. They allowed the gangs to settle their issues their way as long as they didn’t break out in any machine gun fights or shootings in order to maintain peace.

However, because they had to chase Huo Shaoheng this time around, the police and CIA had crossed into their area. They even took guns with them. With Huo Shaoheng sneaking around and even killing one of their people, the gangs thought that the police were the ones who had killed their partner in crime. This made the gangs extremely angry.

After Huo Shaoheng had fired the shot, he retreated quickly towards one of the more crowded areas of the harbor. Seeing that the CIA agent and the police were unable to fend off the gangs, Huo Shaoheng’s lips curled into a slight smile. He hopped onto the subway that had just arrived and headed towards the airport.

Based on his experience, Huo Shaoheng was sure that the harbor, airport, train stations, and car rental shops would all have people from the government stationed there to keep a lookout for him. In order to get out of the trap, one needed to go into it first.

When the police were all gathered in the harbor to settle the fight between the police and the gangs, Huo Shaoheng was already on the subway heading to Kennedy International Airport in New York. Just like when he was at the harbor, he used the same tactics to reveal himself to the CIA and FBI agents in the airport and get their attention. Due to the September 11th incident, the security in the airports in America was a lot stronger than that of the harbor. The moment he revealed himself, the CIA and FBI officers who were supposed to track him down attempted to close in on him from all directions. The security in the airport was activated as well in order to help with the operation.

Huo Shaoheng weaved among the crowd and realized exasperatedly that it was really quite tough to escape this time. The security in the airport was way better. They had almost grabbed Huo Shaoheng’s arm a couple of times. He managed to escape purely based on years of intensive training. Moreover, the airport and the harbor were different, as the airport did not have gangs roaming around. He couldn’t use them as a distraction anymore. Of course, the opponent did not open fire, as there were too many civilians in the airport. They could not bear the consequences of initiating a shootout in this place.

Huo Shaoheng began running. He jumped over obstacles and fences, and crossed low screens and walls. Finally, he managed to get out of the terminal and onto the tarmac. There was a huge and spacious landing area for aircraft. Countless commercial aircraft were parked neatly in front of him on the ramp.

Huo Shaoheng began dodging and jumped onto a luggage transport vehicle, crouching low at the bottom of the vehicle before he could outrun the people who were after him. The transportation vehicle stopped in front of a commercial aircraft. The worker began moving the luggage into the storage compartment.

Huo Shaoheng jumped off before they came up. Thankfully, there was a large amount of luggage on board. Huo Shaoheng used it to hide from the workers. After leaping over a low wall, Huo Shaoheng managed to get away from the airport, seemingly ignoring how much havoc he had caused.

He found a secluded spot and began changing his looks again. Removing his rimmed glasses, he put on the colored contact lenses and hooked nose again. Then, messing up his hair, he turned his neatly combed hair into a sexy, bed-head style. It was the total opposite of how he had looked as a nerdy Asian IT man just a while ago.

He had also replaced the white shirt with a tight-fitting, floral-printed maroon shirt. Leaving the top two buttons unbuttoned, he revealed his collarbone, and looked cold and aloof. He exuded an aura of not caring about the world.

Walking around the streets of New York in this style attracted the attention of almost all the passionate ladies. They were wolf whistling at him. Ignoring them, Huo Shaoheng flagged down a cab and returned to the subway station in New York.

There were significantly fewer police officers, and CIA and FBI agents than there were at the airport. Most likely they had been activated to go to the airport and the harbor after receiving information that their suspect had been seen.

With his disguise now, no one could guess that Huo Shaoheng was the Asian “kidnapper” that they had taken a picture of just now. He boarded the subway and returned to the station. Then, he boarded the train and returned to the parking lot in New City before driving his Hummer into the evening.

It was exactly five o’clock in the evening when he reached his condominium. Starting work at nine o’clock in the morning and ending at five o’clock in the evening, Huo Shaoheng felt like someone with an office job. A mocking look flashed across his face.

Opening the door to his room, he went to the bathroom immediately. He had been out the entire day, and it had been dusty. He had also used a lot of hair gel to style his hair, and it already felt oily. He had to put in a great deal of effort to feel clean again. Then, he made himself a nice cup of coffee, sat on the sofa, and began admiring his “work of art” for the day.

True enough, he made the headlines on the evening news for appearing at the harbor and airport today. Raising his cup of coffee, he saluted the stern looking CIA senior officer of area A and downed his coffee in one gulp.

This news that shook the entire United States was not even mentioned in the Hua Xia Empire. Upon the Army’s Supreme Council’s request, all news and information regarding Tan Guiren’s kidnapping was not to be reported in the Hua Xia Empire, including this report on the “kidnapper.” It worked similarly on social media platforms as well. Anyone who spread information of this news would be taken down immediately. They were really strict about this.

The report that was making headlines recently in the Hua Xia Empire was the murder of the female student who was studying in Germany. Due to the support of one of the prime minister candidates, Bai Jiancheng, the girl’s parents were finally able to head over to Germany.

Ma Qiqi, who was following the case, shared this piece of information happily with Gu Nianzhi. However, Gu Nianzhi only had time to “like” the post because it was the day that she had to visit her father, Gu Xiangwen, with her sister, Gu Yanran. During the month, the sisters had gone to visit Gu Xiangwen, who was still in a vegetative state under Chen Lie’s care.

Arriving at Chen Lie’s office, Gu Nianzhi saw that Gu Yanran had already arrived. However, this time, she wasn’t alone. A man who was tall and slim with extremely deeply set features was with her.